1 day enough for IoA? (Harry Potter)

[Mr Wes]

I am very lucky that I get to go to Disney World for a trade show in August which my family and I will add another week to fully enjoy the parks.

All though we love all things Disney, I really...I mean my daughter really wants to see/visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Being that Harry Potter is my main focus, is 1 day enough to see all of the Wizarding World and squeeze a few other attractions?

Also I will be traveling with my 8 year old and 2 year old, are there enough things for both of them to enjoy?

 

[Badge]

If you only care about seeing HP, then yes, one day is enough. August the parks will be really busy, so make sure to arrive early to HP to avoid having to wait to get into the land. Once a certain amount of people enter, they close it off and give you a return ticket (like a FP) telling you when you can come back to the area of the park.

There are a lot of other great rides at Universal for you to enjoy. Since you will most likely just do your one day at Island, you will be able to ride things like Spiderman (amazing ride), Hulk, Jurrasic Park River Adventure, Popeye and Dudley (you might want to bring a change of clothes or wear a poncho on these). Then of course you have the whole Dr. Suess area that you kids will love with 4 rides.

You should have enough time to explore the HP area in the morning, then explore the rest of the park and end your day back in HP. The whole land looks amazing at night! Also, make sure to grab the Butterbeer! You and your kids will love it!

 

[Que_Sarah_Sarah]

Don't take a bag or be prepared to leave bags with a non rider. Having any type of bag at Universal will extend your wait times exponentially.

 

[Metro West]

If you only care about seeing HP, then yes, one day is enough. August the parks will be really busy, so make sure to arrive early to HP to avoid having to wait to get into the land. Once a certain amount of people enter, they close it off and give you a return ticket (like a FP) telling you when you can come back to the area of the park.

There are a lot of other great rides at Universal for you to enjoy. Since you will most likely just do your one day at Island, you will be able to ride things like Spiderman (amazing ride), Hulk, Jurrasic Park River Adventure, Popeye and Dudley (you might want to bring a change of clothes or wear a poncho on these). Then of course you have the whole Dr. Suess area that you kids will love with 4 rides.

You should have enough time to explore the HP area in the morning, then explore the rest of the park and end your day back in HP. The whole land looks amazing at night! Also, make sure to grab the Butterbeer! You and your kids will love it!

 

[Bonniec]

One day is enough, and I agree about the bags.

Universal/IOA rocks for kid swap stuff. For example, in the Forbidden Journey, they actually play the HP movie in a nice air conditioned area. Plus the kids can look over the door and see people getting on and off the rides. Disney could learn a thing or two about kid swaps from Universal.

Suessland is brilliant for kids and quite frankly, I love it too.

While my favorite will always be Disney, the rest of my household prefers IOA. You will have a great time.

 

[schumigirl]

If you only care about seeing HP, then yes, one day is enough. August the parks will be really busy, so make sure to arrive early to HP to avoid having to wait to get into the land. Once a certain amount of people enter, they close it off and give you a return ticket (like a FP) telling you when you can come back to the area of the park.

There are a lot of other great rides at Universal for you to enjoy. Since you will most likely just do your one day at Island, you will be able to ride things like Spiderman (amazing ride), Hulk, Jurrasic Park River Adventure, Popeye and Dudley (you might want to bring a change of clothes or wear a poncho on these). Then of course you have the whole Dr. Suess area that you kids will love with 4 rides.

You should have enough time to explore the HP area in the morning, then explore the rest of the park and end your day back in HP. The whole land looks amazing at night! Also, make sure to grab the Butterbeer! You and your kids will love it!

Good advice

Don't take a bag or be prepared to leave bags with a non rider. Having any type of bag at Universal will extend your wait times exponentially.

All 3 of us always have fannypacks and never had a problem going on any ride with them

 

[lovehoney]

We just went to IOA the first week of January and only had a 1 day pass. We were there for WWOHP and it was amazing. The crowds were crazy, but I day was enough.

Here is what we did:

We arrived when the park opened to the public at 9 am, our wait for Forbidden journey was about 90 minutes. I got to ride again because we had a 2 year old and my DH stayed with him on the first round and our friends stayed with DS2, and the other kids while we rode again. They only allowed 1 person to ride for the swap - we couldn't decide which kid so I went again . When we got out it was 120 minute wait and stayed there most of the day.

We had to wait 60 minutes for Flight of the Hippogriff but only 10 minutes for Dueling Dragons. Olivanders was packed so we didn't attempt (the line was much shorter in the evening). The butterbeer lines were outrageous. It is great that you can get soda refills on your mug for around $1. I wasn't a big fan of the butterbeer. We did not get the frozen though and I heard it is better.

After WWHOP, we went to Seuss Landing. High in the Sky Trolley was an hour wait - we waited. The other rides only had 5 to 25 minute waits. We did the carousel and the play area. Some in our group went to Hulk (about 1 hour wait) during this time.

After Seuss landing we went to Jurassic Park. Don't do the River Adventure if it is cold - big mistake - love the ride though. Then we waited 1 hour for the Pteredon flyers - never again. After that we went back to Forbidden Journey and some of us did the single rider line. It took us 30 minutes - Regular standby said 70 minutes. It was great seeing Hogsmeade at night.

We rode the Cat in The Hat ride on the way out. We left about 7:30 pm (30 minutes before the park closed) and grabbed KFC on the way back to the resort.

We never did full service to eat during the day, we just ate at kiosks/walkup if we saw a short line and we were hungry. We had time for some shopping. We toured with 10 people total. We didn't get to everything but 1 day was enough. With less people you could probably do a lot more.

 

[AshleeH]

We did it for one day last year and it was enough for us. However, we spent a lot of our focus in the main IoA part because my boys are nuts over the Marvel Superheroes. I'm a huge HP fan and they were burned out by the time we got to that section of the park, so we didn't do anything back there except walk through a couple of shops, take pictures and leave (no rides, no line for Butterbeer). But we did get out of there early, so if my boys hadn't been crashing and we had stayed until closing, one day would've been plenty.

 

[macraven]

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[RCMommy]

Agree with being able to do IOA in one day. We did and spent half the day in WWOHP and the other half around the park. Your 8 yr old, like mine will likely not be tall enough for the Hulk so you will not have that line to wait in. We found first thing in the morning the Forbidden Journey was a long wait because people enter and go straight to that area. So we waited until mid morning- to just after lunch and only waited 25 minutes. Don't wait an hour the pteraodon flyers...so not worth it. My two got of the ride and looked at me with a "That's IT??" look. One hour of waiting and about 1 minute of 'flying'

Suess landing is great and our kids rode Cat in the hat about 6 times.

 

[Mr Wes]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Looks Like Ill be making the plans for IoA. Im really excited to see WWOHP! Were huge fans! and Im glad to hear they have a parent swap system which is great since we'll have our 2 yr old!